More than three million self-employed they will launch a quote system from the January 1, 2023. If until now each self-employed worker chose how much he paid each month of quota, now You will have to contribute based on the volume of income you have. The associations consulted agree that the new scheme will force the self-employed to keep their balance sheets up to date, so that they can correct if they pay more or less throughout the year and thus avoid surprises when they close the year. Among the self-employed people breathe some concern about the news and they claim that a greater contribution effort translates into real access to social protections similar to those enjoyed by wage earners.
“I see it as a logical process, it was inevitable that we would pay more. You saw it in many freelancers, who throughout their lives they had been with the minimum quota and when they reached retirement they suffered“, Explain Jordi Del Cacho, a 54-year-old pharmacist who is already starting to make numbers thinking about retirement. Until now, eight out of 10 were quoted for the minimum base. Some because their income did not give them more, others because they applied the logic of ‘better in my pocket than in the State’. And it is that, unlike wage-earners, there was no contribution.
“Calm down, the self-employed have to continue quoting as up to now and modulate their quota in the coming months. But it does require a change in mentality and that workers keep up with their accounts to find out if they have to change the section or not”, points out the president of Pimec Autònoms, Elisabeth Bach.
The new system designed by Minister José Luis Escrivá traces 15 sections of net income (income minus expenses), with the minimum fee in 230 euros and the maximum in 590 euros. Those self-employed who are paying today flat rate they are kept until their maturity and, for the new ones, one of the 80 euros monthly as long as net earnings above the minimum interprofessional salary are not registered. According to official calculations, two out of three self-employed will pay the same or less, while the remaining third will pay more. Returning to Del Cacho and his pharmacy in the center of Terrassa -with 26 years of history-, he is one of those who would have to pay more, if it were not for the fact that, voluntarily, he is already trading above the minimum.
“The next few months I consider them as a trial period, I still want to see how it materializes,” continues Del Chacho. This pharmacist does not specify what fee he will pay as of January 1 – “I am in the high fringe”-, but it advances that it intends to take advantage of the transitory authorized by the Government to overprice, thus generate a cushion and ensure a good future pension. “I want to go quiet,” he says. Not surprisingly, the pensions of self-employed workers are 40% lower than those of employees.
The self-employed who will benefit most directly from the reform will be those with the lowest income and whose minimum fee represented a high percentage of their total billing. It is the case of Maria Jose Dominguez, acupuncturist. “Now I pay 290 euros [la mínima sin tarifa plana], in January 230 euros ”, he says. This 58-year-old self-employed person is also an employee and president of the Societat d’Acupuntors de Catalunya, which means that not all of her working hours are dedicated to working as a freelancer and, therefore, her income through this channel is in the lower section “People who start a business are going to benefit,” she considers. She too praises the six windows throughout the year that a worker will have to modify their quota, especially in the current context of economic uncertainty. Although he acknowledges that the paperwork will be more and whoever cannot afford a manager to take it away will have to take time to bring the numbers up to date and not have surprises at the end of the year.
The initial fear that Escrivá’s reform was going to be a ‘hack’ for the collective, both for high and low incomes, has largely dissipated, once the rule was agreed upon with all the organizations representing the collective. However, the ghost of ‘they are going to charge me more and I am not going to receive anything in return’ has not completely disappeared, according to the sources consulted. “We have to begin to understand that not everything that is paid is taxesbut which part goes to the retirementfor him cessation of activity or for low temporary disability. During the pandemic we have seen how important it is to have contributed ”, points out the UGT-CTAC spokesperson, Daniel Garcia. “Access to benefits has to be real, that is still not clear to us,” insists Bach, from Pimec.